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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Politics

Bill Ackman is shocked that people think he’s antivax

Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman wonders why people are calling him antivax. All he did was to defend RFK Jr. and amplify old antivax tropes on Twitter.

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Pseudoscience Skepticism/critical thinking

RFK Jr. doesn’t like being called antivaccine and antimask

RFK Jr. is angry—so very, very angry—because Terry Gross had pro-science guests on her NPR show “Fresh Air” who called him antivaccine and antimask.

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Antivaccine nonsense Clinical trials Medicine

Undermining the childhood vaccine schedule with EBM fundamentalism

“Not antivax” COVID contrarian Dr. Vinay Prasad demonstrates why skepticism is necessary and how evidence-based medicine (EBM) fundamentalism harms childhood health by inadvertently (I hope) echoing a very old antivax trope about randomized clinical trials for the childhood vaccine schedule, you know, to “rebuild confidence.”

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Antivaccine nonsense Bioethics Computers and social media Medicine Skepticism/critical thinking

“Subscription science” and real conflicts of interest

Antivaccine activists and quacks often weaponize legitimate concerns about industry conflicts of interest in medicine into the “shill gambit,” in which they accuse critics and defenders of science-based medicine of being in the pay of big pharma. However, the rise of physician-influencers and, in particular, Subscription Substack show that not all conflicts of interest are from industry or even financial.

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Evolution Medicine

After their COVID success, antivaxxers are going old school on MMR

After using old antivax tropes against COVID-19 vaccines, antivaxxers are pivoting to reuse them to attack measles vaccines again. Everything old is new again—and old again.